B-CHESS: Levon Aronian

Showing posts with label Levon Aronian. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Armenia is the Chess Olympiad 2012 champion

The 2012 Olympic champion Armenia

Armenia is the Chess Olympiad 2012 champion! The team of Armenia – Levon Aronian, Sergei Movsesian, Vladimir Akopian, Gabriel Sargissian, and Tigran Petrosian – won the gold medals in Istanbul after collecting 19,0/22,0 Match points. The team of Russia (silver medal) finished with the same match points, but worse tiebreak. Third place is for the team of Ukraine (bronze medal), who won against China in the last round.

This is the third Olympic title of Armenia after winning the gold in 2006 and 2008.

Update: Board standings

Board 1: Levon Aronian (Gold), Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Silver), Teimour Radjabov (Bronze)
Board 2: David Navara (Gold), Anton Filippov (Silver), Gata Kamsky (Bronze)
Board 3: Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Gold), Vladimir Akopian (Silver), Sergey Karjakin (Bronze)
Board 4: Vladislav Tkachiev (Gold), Abhijeet Gupta (Silver), Daniel Fridman (Bronze)
Board 5: Dmitry Jakovenko (Gold), Bartlomiej Macieja (Silver), Konstantine Shanava (Bronze)

Videos: Round 1 / Round 2 / Round 3 / Round 4 / Round 5 / Round 6 / Round 7 / Round 8 / Round 9 / Round 10

Interviews: Anna Muzychuk / Wesley So / Eric Hansen / Irina Krush / Greek national team / Alexander Ryazantsev / Abhijeet Gupta / Wang Hao / Levon Aronian / Pontus Carlsson / Rafael Leitao / Rustam kasimdzhanov

Armenia wins Chess Olympiad 2012

The multiple Olympic champion Armenia started the Chess Olympiad race as expected. Bolivia and Bangladesh fell victims to the powerful machine with 3:1 and 4:0 scores.

The next rounds were more difficult with Spain, the Philippines, and Ukraine as opponents. Exactly there Armenia employed their key team strategy – win one game, draw the others. Aronian beating Vallejo, Sargissian winning against Dimakiling, and again Aronian defeating Ivanchuk were just 3 game points, but were worth 6 match points in the standings.

With things going so well for the Armenian team, they tried to play a secure draw against their main opposition, Russia. Sargissian and Akopian secured their 1/2 point early, but just then Aronian’s position fell apart against Kramnik and Armenia was against the ropes. It was up to Movsesian to save the team, and after a hard struggle on board 2 Armenia got the desired 2:2 score.

The match against Russia clearly exhausted the team of Armenia, and they were up against the powerful China the next round. The hero of the previous day Movsesian was defeated and Armenia lost the match 2,5:1,5.

When everyone was wondering what will happen psychologically with Armenia, they reacted in the best possible way. The team concentrated and achieved victories against Uzbekistan, Germany, and Netherlands in a convincing manner – Naiditsch, Giri, Dzhumaev, Meier, and Kvon all tasted Armenia’s power on the board.

The last round was also successful for the 2006 and 2008 Olympic champions. They defeated the team of Hungary, with Movsesian taking the full point on board 2, and won their third Olympic gold medal.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Anand confirmed for London chess classic

Fresh from yet another successful title defence, World Champion Viswanathan Anand, of India, became the first player to sign-up to play in the 4th London Chess Classic, at Kensington Olympia, 1-10 December, 2012.

It is no secret that London is one of Anand’s favourite cities, and this will be his third successive appearance in the tournament.

For well over a decade now, Anand has been among the world’s top five players, and the first Indian to earn the grandmaster title. He played in his first World Championship match back in 1995 in New York, losing to Garry Kasparov.

In May, he beat challenger Boris Gelfand in Moscow to clinch his fifth world championship title. He has also won the Chess Oscar (Player of the Year award) 6 times.

Viswanathan Anand

Anand is also something of a national hero in India, where in 2007 he won the Padma Vibhushan award, one of India’s most prestigious civilian awards, ahead of several prominent sporting superstars, such as cricketer Sachin Tendulkar.

He has become a great ambassador for the game and his country, with his high-profile success over the 64 squares seeing India developing rapidly from a backward chess nation into one of the strongest in the world.

Invitations for the 4th London Chess Classic have gone out to World Champion Vishy Anand, World No.1 Magnus Carlsen, defending champion Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Hikaru Nakamura, Judit Polgar, Michael Adams,Luke McShane and Gawain Jones.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Alexander Morozevich in sole lead

Alexander Morozevich won an exciting game against Levon Aronian in the 5th round of the Tal Memorial and moved into the sole lead with 4 points, a full point ahead of the nearest followers.

Moro lined some sort of the Triangle Stonewall with black pieces, but this probably wasn’t a great surprise for the Armenian as the two players already tested a similar setup three years ago in Moscow.

What did come as a little shock was black’s aggression early in the opening. Aronian didn’t want to be a sitting duck and instead sacrificed a Bishop for a handful of pawns, destroying black’s powerful center in the process.

The game became very complicated and Aronian probably rushed a bit to exchange the Queens. He relied on the rolling central pawns, but Morozevich was able to activate the pieces and stop the avalanche.

Alexander Morozevich

White pawns started disappearing from the board and Aronian resigned when the time control was reached.

The defending champion and world’s top rated player, Magnus Carlsen, started the tournament with four consecutive draws and it didn’t look as he could hope for more than another tie after the opening in the game against the co-leader Teimour Radjabov.